I finally visited Walt Disney World for the first time last month, and I came to one conclusion, Disneyland needs more animatronics!

I think that is the only thing that stood out to me at WDW was seeing more animatronics. I was so impressed with the aliens on Stitch, The presidents hall, Carrousel of Progress, Country Bear Jamboree, spaceship earth, even the singing alien dude in cosmic rays... Animatronics really bring a magic to the attractions.

I know we have pirates, tiki, splash, Lincoln, c3po at Dland... and Cars, mermaid, potato head, and mike and sulley in DCA. But couldn't we use them elsewhere? Any ideas? Am I wrong?

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I think the age of animatronics is pretty much over. I think they still have their place here and there for sure - but the idea of coming into a room and sitting down to watch an animatronic do something being billed as entertainment is long gone. I think in cases where animatronics have been used sparingly are some of the uses of the technology (such as Tough to be a Bug). On the flip side of that, I find the animatronics in Radiator Springs Racers to be unnecessary and just a tad bit creepy.

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I consider myself a fan of animatronic figures too. But if we look at the last few major attractions at the Disneyland Resort (Mania, Tours, Mermaid, and Racers), I think it's clear that they're still being used prominently in new projects, even when the show doesn't revolve around them.

Also, to the OP, keep in mind that your list omits the animatronics in Mansion, Indy, Matterhorn, Muppets/Bugs, Buzz, and Tours. Not to mention the simpler figures at Thunder, Pirates Lair, the Fantasyland classics, Roger Rabbit, Small World, and Jungle. So I dont think Anaheim is exactly shortchanged on animatronics, though I'd love to see more.

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The loss of Country Bear Jamboree and America Sings .. does make it feel like there's a shortage of them.

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I think DCA could definitely use more. It seems like they must have got a lot of feedback saying so when they were planning the renovation because they did add quite a few in Mermaid and RSR. But in general shows are just tough with a locals dominated audience like there is at DLR. Perhaps a new generation of AA shows will be developed with the flexibility to continuously change the show like Star Tours 2 or interact with the audience like Crush, Mr. Potato Head and a few others at WDW. But in general I don't think we'll see many more AA shows in Anaheim. I assume we'll get at minimum a Cantina Band and some storm troopers in TL soon, so that will be at least a few more.

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For me the animatronics were as much a part of the magic as the rides themselves. Not Mr. Lincoln or Carousel of Progress but the Tiki denizens and the pirates.

Perhaps people take them for granted nowadays.

And perhaps now that we have computer-generated photo-realistic dinosaurs in the movies, the robots akin to living stop motion are archaic?

But perhaps if they could incorporate the magic that makes Crush talk turtle with an audience into a three-dimensional figure...and we could have photo opportunities not just with Belle but with The Beast as well...

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Well, in a perfect world where Disney used the most modern, up-to-date animatronics and always kept them in perfect working order, then yes, I think we need more animatronics. However, since that is clearly not the world we live in, and since the really realistic animatronics are incredibly expensive to build and maintain, I'm going to say no, because I don't want to go on more rides like Splash Mountain were a fairly significant amount of animatronics routinely don't work. I'd rather see rides with more digital effects a la King Kong at Universal. That way, they can be easily changed or upgraded as needed, and it is less expensive to maintain, so hopefully that means Disney will do a better job at it.

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I consider myself a fan of animatronic figures too. But if we look at the last few major attractions at the Disneyland Resort (Mania, Tours, Mermaid, and Racers), I think it's clear that they're still being used prominently in new projects, even when the show doesn't revolve around them.

Also, to the OP, keep in mind that your list omits the animatronics in Mansion, Indy, Matterhorn, Muppets/Bugs, Buzz, and Tours. Not to mention the simpler figures at Thunder, Pirates Lair, the Fantasyland classics, Roger Rabbit, Small World, and Jungle. So I dont think Anaheim is exactly shortchanged on animatronics, though I'd love to see more.

It's true they have added AAs in the new attractions, but 3 of the 4 you listed are at DCA. And Star Tours already had the same amount of AAs as before (maybe + 1). Trust me it's great they have added them, and before going to WDW I would have never complained. But now coming back from WDW it became very apparent to me, that that is the big difference between us and them.

I know I didn't include those, but I wanted to focus on what we don't have instead of what we have. Except for Matterhorn, Roger Rabbit, WDW has all those too. I know its unfair to compare the land to the world, but there is a difference when it comes to AAs. I am 27 and was my first time seeing thse and was seriously impressed with the AAs I saw there, they were really magical to me and I was sad to know we don't have the equivalent at Disneyland.

I don't want to go too long here, but there is some amazing AAs, Ben Franklin walks up stairs, roy rogers spins a lasso and tips his hat, mark twain lites up and SMOKES! Stitch appears and disappears and spits at the audience, ben franklin and mark twain shake hands, everything is space ship earth. All of these made me sit back in my seat and say wow! We just don't have those here at Dland. (I know bigger budget, bigger space, different audience... but we did have America sings, country bears in the past. it is doable)

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I know this won't be popular... but I feel like Splash Mountain is to blame. Maybe too much maintenance needs go into that many AAs all on one attraction. Hypothetically, if they took half of them out and spread them out through out the rides in the park, there would be a much bigger impact to visitors then all of them on one ride. Plus, I feel like people go on splash for the drop and splash, not the AAs. Where people for on Pirates/Mansion for the AAs.